Yesterday at Google I/O, Google announced a new set of features for Android P that are supposed to help you be less addicted to your smartphone. As I outlined in my post and tweets yesterday, I’m not really buying into it. To date, companies have continued to feed the beast leading many people to have what we now call “smartphone addiction.” And now, after years and years, of getting customers dependent and addicted to their technology, companies like Google making a [PR] attempt to battle addiction.

If we are to take the diagnosis/terminology of smartphone addiction on its face, simply providing controls that have be implemented and abided by the end-user doesn’t seem like a very good solution. For example, if someone is an alcoholic or a drug addict, they enter AA or rehab, in which, they are not allowed to have alcohol or do drugs. In addition, they take counseling and learn ways to avoid being tempted. But perhaps, most importantly of all, these people are taught to understand that even one drink or hit of heroin could lead to a relapse.

So I ask again, how do more apps that let you manage your existing app usage help in any real way? I don’t think it does, at least, in any meaningful way. If anything, it just adds more complexity to the situation.

The real solution to battling smartphone addiction is one companies like Google don’t want you to do: learning to put your phone down for extended periods of time.